Good old-fashioned hate. Isn’t that a great name for a rivalry? College sports offer unrivaled pageantry on game days, which trickles from inside the locker room onto the field and through the stands — especially during rivalry games. The nation’s most-heated battles are often season-defining and have a great deal of meaning incomparable to other contests.
Even the coaches get into it, a disdain so strong for the opposition that sportsmanship is sometimes pushed to the back burner when recruiting bragging rights are on the line. Looking across college sports, there are 10 rivalries that stand out as some of the most significant. Last season’s Michigan win over Ohio State featured a battle of unbeatens in the College Football Playoff race and was the Wolverines’ third-straight win in the series, ultimately leading to the program’s first title since 1997.
Reminder: Rivalries don’t necessarily have to be all that competitive to be heated. There are many hated battles that don’t get national recognition, but that doesn’t make them any less bitter.
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Here’s 10 rivalries in college sports considered to be the most heated every year:
Many of our readers have spoken: In the Sunshine State, Florida State-Florida trumps Florida State-Miami as the more bitter football rivalry. The Seminoles have won consecutive games in the rivalry after losing three straight to the Gators and trail the all-time series 37-28-2. Steve Spurrier and Bobby Bowden battled against one another in several marquee games during the 1990s and Florida’s most success against Florida State came during the 1970s and mid 2000s. Remember Tim Tebow’s warpaint on his face in Tallahassee? That was a classic photo from one of college football’s all-time great rivalries.
The Backyard Brawl needs to be played annually — let’s go ahead and get that out of the way from the outset. Only 75 miles along Interstate 79 separate these schools. Pitt leads the all-time series, 62-41-3, but the Panthers and Mountaineers’ 2022 meeting was their first since the 2011 season. Prior to that, this rivalry was one of the longest uninterrupted battles in college football. One of the biggest meetings came in 2007 when unranked Pitt, who was 4-7 at the time, upset No. 2 West Virginia, 13-9, and cost the Mountaineers a spot in the BCS National Championship Game. It was the 100th meeting between the rivals.
This matchup doesn’t get the love it should, but the Egg Bowl can break up families in Mississippi — it’s that hostile. The annual Thanksgiving fight between the Rebels and Bulldogs often determines which one of those teams checks the box on a season that exceeds (or falls below) expectations. In the last decade alone, there have been several memorable moments including Dak Prescott’s fourth-quarter comeback and overtime win in 2013, the Rebels’ costly “dog peeing” touchdown celebration from Elijah Moore in 2019. These two programs have split their last eight meetings.
One of only two basketball-slanted rivalries ranked, this was a heavily-debated inclusion. Indiana-Purdue and Xavier-Cincinnati are quite ugly as well, but the world usually stops when these two bluebloods meet on the hardwood. The meeting during the 2022-23 campaign was considerably different given Louisville’s struggles. There are fans who still talk about Kentucky’s win over Louisville in the 1984 NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, the point at which this series really got nasty. Separated by 80 miles, Kentucky and Louisville are two of college basketball’s most storied programs. One of the more juicy storylines over the past few decades was Rick Pitino taking the Louisville job in 2001 after leading Kentucky from 1989-97. He won national titles at both programs. The two rivals met in the 2012 Final Four, a Kentucky victory leading to John Calipari’s only national title at the program a few days later. Kentucky leads the all-time series, 39-17.
These two SEC recruiting powers battle for recruits every year in Jacksonville, Fla., the site of Florida-Georgia war. Call it a war because that’s exactly what is — opposing sides with an even split of fans who want to see the others upset on gameday. Before the last couple years of “down seasons” in Gainesville, the winner of this matchup usually wins the SEC East and pushes forward from this game as a momentum-booster heading into the home stretch of the regular season. Over the last two seasons, Georgia has dominated this matchup.
Red River hate. Only once in the last 12 meetings between these two teams was the score not in doubt in crunch time (Texas, 49-0 in 2022). From the pre-game pageantry to post-game war of words, the Big 12’s best rivalry is incredibly bitter and that’s going to continue with the Longhorns and Sooners moving to the SEC this fall. This series played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas features everything you want in a border war — legendary players and coaches, national championship and conference title implications and bragging rights year-round the following year. Texas and Oklahoma met twice during the 2018 season, only the third time that’s happened in the same year in more than a century. The Sooners avenged a regular-season loss to the Longhorns to win their fourth-consecutive conference crown. Texas leads all-time, 63–51–5.
Played on its own weekend in December for a decade now with national television billing, the Army-Navy Game emits patriotism for our Armed Forces and is one of the most-watched games of the college football season. If you had to introduce someone to college football who has never seen a game, this one’s it. There’s just something about this game played in Philadelphia, almost equidistant between the two academies. The Knights and Midshipmen first met in 1890 and have met annually over the past 90 years. And for much of the 20th century, these two programs were national powers with this game — at times — being played with national title implications. Navy leads the series 62–55–7 and won 14 straight from 2003 to 2015, a rivalry high. The pageantry is part of what makes this game so special.
The Tar Heels have considerable bragging rights after beating legendary Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski in his home finale and then taking him out of the NCAA Tournament in the Final Four in his final game on the grand stage in 2022. North Carolina won both games this season, too, and captured the ACC regular-season crown. Anyone who’s been around the Tobacco Road rivalry knows how nasty it is between the fanbases and players involved. North Carolina-Duke has national relevance and most college basketball fans — no matter where they reside — would put this matchup in the top spot for the sport. North Carolina-Duke was built on disdain — public versus private universities separated by eight miles. These two have combined for more conference titles and national championships than any other rivalry in college basketball over the past four decades and has featured dozens of the sport’s all-time great players and coaches.
One of the SEC’s most competitive rivalries and the most nasty, Alabama-Auburn’s battle in the Iron Bowl every November shifts the college football world on its axis in a matchup often laced with national championship implications. Alabama leads the series 59–37–1. Alabama is 10-4 against Auburn since 2010 with two of those losses ranking among the most memorable in the rivalry’s rich history — Cam Newton’s 21-point comeback in 2010 (national title season for the Tigers) and the jaw-dropping Kick-Six in 2013. Auburn kept Alabama away from a College Football Playoff opportunity in 2019 with a thrilling win at Jordan-Hare Stadium, the second-straight time then-coach Gus Malzahn had beaten Nick Saban on The Plains. The Tigers nearly did it again in 2021 despite a 6-7 finish and Alabama won last season’s game on a fourth-down miracle.
These two programs ranked inside the top 15 in each of the past five meetings with Michigan’s three-consecutive wins pushing the Wolverines to the Big Ten Championship Game, multiple playoff appearances and last season’s national title. See how much this rivalry means to college football? One of the longest uninterrupted rivalries halted due to an unexpected hiccup during the 2020 season, but its return has not disappointed post-COVID. The level of respect for the opposition began to dwindle a bit on Ohio State’s side of the rivalry due to the Buckeyes’ decade-plus reign of dominance prior to the 2021 season, but now the disdain is even stronger. Ask anyone associated with “The Game” and they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s an extremely bitter fight that is anticipated for months every college football season. The Wolverines lead the all-time series, 61-51-6.
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